Global pressures on rural Africa

Despite rapid urbanisation, most of Africa's population is rural - and this number is growing. Dependent on agriculture and pastoralism, we cannot ignore the harsh impact the globalisation and market liberalisation is having on their livelihoods.

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A farmer at work in Kenya's Mount Kenya region. Source: Neil Palmer(CIAT)/Wikimedia Commons

This interview is part of the series 'Development in the Face of Global Inequalities'. You can find out more about the series, read its articles and explore the interactive roundtables by clicking here.

If you walk into a supermarket in a
Sub-Saharan Africa city, one of the first things you might notice is how
familiar it seems. You’ll find the same brands of chocolate, imported rice and coffee
you would normally buy in your own supermarket back home. What does seem strange
though, is how few local products are
for sale. If Africa holds half of the world’s unused fertile land, why
does it import $25 billion worth of food each year? And as Africa becomes increasingly integrated into world markets, can we really say that everyone's a winner?

This is what I planned talk about with Catherine Boone, a Professor of Political
Science at the London School of Economics (LSE). Having worked for
many years in Kenya, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Tanzania, her research focusing on property rights, land tenure and territorial politics in Africa, she is just the person to speak with about the effects of globalisation and
market liberalisation on populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As we sit down for the interview, Catherine
points out that one frequent misconception about Africa’s development is that despite
rapid urbanisation, most of the region's population is rural, and continues to grow. In Kenya, for example, the
rural population is projected to reach 30 million over the next three decades,
a trend also visible in Tanzania and Cote d’Ivoire. This means that across
Africa, most people are involved in
agricultural and pastoralism to sustain their livelihoods. But here’s the
catch: as rural populations increase, rates of technological innovation in
agriculture remain slow, so the pressure on land is mounting. So, I was curious
to know, what is the effect of globalisation
when it comes to rural livelihoods? Catherine approaches the question from the
perspective of a typical farmer.

“Some
of the very dramatic ways in which livelihoods have been shaped by
globalisation is through the liberalisation of national markets for
agricultural produce. What that means, is that 20 or 40 years ago, if you were
a rice, maize or millet farmer, you could produce, then consume and sell part
of your produce in the local or urban markets and the money would be a major
contributor to your family’s annual earned income.”

But now, Catherine explains, even
though most of the population is dependent on farming, market liberalisation
essentially throws
open the gates for cheap food from the international market to flow in. These
are the kinds of policies that were imposed by neoliberal structural adjustment
reforms across Africa in the 1990s. Market liberalisation works well for
developed countries that have already managed to lower production costs to
export goods at competitive prices, but this was not the case for African
farmers. Suddenly, farmers in Ghana or Senegal selling rice on the domestic
market found themselves in direct competition with cheaper rice imports from South
East Asia or the United States. As a result, foreign competition threatened
local agricultural commodities markets and left hundreds of thousands of
farmers at risk of losing their incomes.

Internally,
there’s also the question of economic competition over land as
land-to-person ratios steadily decline. Catherine mentions that her work
over the last 10 years seeks to explain the role of government in structuring
the rules, laws and arrangements by which people gain access and hold land. Political
scientists often assume that growing pressure on land leads to conflicts, but
Catherine’s research counters this assumption.

“It’s a false idea to
expect that just because there are more people conflict will break out. In most
places, there are clear hierarchies of control around land, there are winners
and losers to that, but there are clear rules the government enforces and backs
up. This contrasts with areas without clear governments hierarchies or where
authority is not recognised. Governments give and take land more directly, more
arbitrarily. When you have a lot of political churning, contestation and instability,
this can translate into instability in land holding arrangements on the ground.”

So then, I ask, with the external pressures of globalisation
and the internal pressure on land, what is the best course of action for these
countries to take, is there a solution? Catherine emphasises the need for
governments and institutions to balance food imports with pricing policies to
support livelihoods for rural producers. This would require governments to
impose taxes and other restrictions on imports in a judicious way that supports
farming, which unfortunately is an unlikely course of action for opportunistic
or unstable governments.

As our conversation draws to an end, I'm left wondering about how we ended up
with a system where institutions on the other side of the world define the
rules that shape the livelihoods of ordinary farmers. As the example of Africa
and many developing countries has now shown, it is just as important to prevent
bad policy decisions by international institutions as it is for governments to
implement good policies locally.

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